Notes
by athena14lee
Summary: Leo and Calypso, after the dust settles. Oneshot.


Leo leaves them everywhere—on the countertop, stuck to the walls, over the strange silver spigots that release water with a twist. It takes her forever to untangle his snarled strings of Greek letters into threads of meaning, but Calypso does, and she finds that he has left her small instructions and explanations for all the modern devices in his flat.

_Fan. Makes breeze. Pull blue cord._

_Pull red cord for light. _

_TV. Like your seeing the present spell thing. Red button on/off. Up/down arrows change what you see._

_Stove. For cooking__. DON'T TOUCH 4NOW._

They are scattered and slapdash in typical Leo fashion. But they are also her signposts, little hints that help her navigate this dizzying new world.

In the early days of her freedom, when she is utterly lost, Calypso falls into the habit of leaving her own notes. Most of them consist of _What is this? _Or _Does this do what I think it does?_ Or _Is this dangerous?_ After the first explosion, courtesy of a short-circuited oven Leo forgot to fix, she learns to ask before touching.

Later, _after_ he shows her how to use the stove, she makes him grocery lists and reminds him that he needs more than just month-old energy bars and soft drinks to survive.

_I can't cook decent meals with wilted greens_, she tells him in one note, slipped into a freshly laundered jacket pocket. _Here's how you pick quality kale._

"I'm a mechanic, not a farmer," he tells her over tire rotations. "I'll take you to the grocery on Tuesday." When Calypso glares, wondering if he's being a typical man again, Leo colors and shrugs. "Better you than me," he says. "At least stuff won't catch fire if you're the one doing the shopping." It's a fair point, so she lets him show her the way to the market. The world becomes a little bigger.

Leo puts her up in the rooms over his shop, a little color-splashed building sandwiched between a bail-bonds place and a photo studio. Night and day Calypso can hear the sounds of the city all around her and the constant whirring and grunting of cars in the shop. She knows Leo loves it, though, and she learns to as well. The endless noise of traffic and the crush of humanity can be overwhelming, but they remind Calypso that she is not alone, that she is constantly surrounded by other people coming and going and talking and laughing and _living. _

And besides, no one said that she couldn't be happy in a city. When she isn't helping Leo in his shop, she tends her plants, flooding the window boxes with explosions of color—hydrangeas and orchids, but also daisies, bluebells, and violets. She cooks and sews and sings. Life is good.

Time wears on the explanatory notes, and they disappear gradually, after the scrawls fade and the paper yellows. By then, Calypso doesn't need them anymore, but she mourns them anyway, missing the sweet consideration he put into them. When she mentions it, Leo blinks at her, twice. Then he grins and says, "I don't have to stop, you know."

A few days later she finds a packet of seeds on the counter, with a note: _I figured if anyone could grow Southwestern flowers in NY, it's you. Because I also figured you'd kill me if I gave you cut flowers instead of living ones. _

On the kitchen counter, one afternoon, he sticks: _Take a break, I'll cook tonight. You ever had authentic Tex-Mex?_

For her part, Calypso adds bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes to her window boxes and laughs herself to tears over the fiery taste of Southwestern food. She watches Leo's impish grin and the warmth in his eyes when he looks at her, the way he see girl rather than goddess. She remembers a kiss on a distant sandy beach, tasting of sorrow and desperation and wanting. Once, she held that memory to her chest, letting it warm her in her loneliness. Now, she has so many other memories to hold on to. She has afternoons in the shop, Tuesdays at the grocery, evenings cooking, bonfire nights at Camp Half-Blood. She has weekends boating in Long Island Sound and morning coffees. She has his notes.

To his keys, she adds another: _I love you. _

On the fridge (in typical Leo fashion) he sticks the reply: _Same._


End file.
